Abstract
Since 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has made a strong social reconstruction, particularly in human culture. This paper is considers how the reconstruction leads to the formation of different new cultures, especially new culture created by regional public health policy. In late 2020 of Hong Kong, the regulation of wearing of mask has implemented and has not been dismissed. The tension has strongly been created to affect the original daily routine of Hong Kong citizens. This paper argues that while people are forced to wearing of mask in most of the public areas and working places, new discourse has been created. The discussion is explored with ethnographic methods to review if the community is filling with all masking people, how is masked community representing its own social status, emotions and the relationship of the community. This paper argues that the discourse of people would be produced by the types of mask, the size of masks, and the way of presenting the mask. Further to this, if we noticed that Hong Kong citizens would identify someone who wears mask in yellow color as anti-government party, and the one who wears CuMask provided by Hong Kong government is upholding pro-government political stance. This tension has led to the discussion of why and how does a mask affect the discourse of the community. Finally, in this paper, we explore ways out when masked community has a high tension of conflict.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
MASKED COMMUNITY, CULTURAL DISCOURSE, REPRESENTATION, IDENTITY
